


Let me down slowly

by withered



Series: these violent delights [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst, Death, I don't know, I'm trying here!, It's a pain train, Not Tony's, Or an attempt at angst, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The Starks' murder, protect tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: In the year 2016, it was estimated that every ten seconds, twenty-one people died.Tony Stark was not one of them.





	Let me down slowly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovinthepizzalife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovinthepizzalife/gifts).



> For the prompt by lovinthepizzalife: In the year 1987, among a world population of 5,055,636,132, only 46,390 people died. Now tell me: how many times do you think seventeen-year-old Tony and upwards thought about that fact after Howard and Maria were unlucky enough to not be one of the 5,055,589,742 who didn't die in a car crash?
> 
> Here be feels of the sad variety.

_“You know what’s coming, my Antonio, do you want to say anything before I go?”_

_-_

_-_

_-_

Tony Stark knows Death; when one of his nannies is killed in front of him during a botched kidnapping; when Ana has that heart attack in the kitchen; when Jarvis doesn’t wake up from what should have been a routine operation. When his parents die in the car accident.

Strangely enough, Tony’s glad that it was an accident.

If there were any way to rate deaths in terms of trauma, the nature of the accident ranks it pretty low. After all, Tony’s gotten accustomed to mentally preparing for the worst possible scenario after his nanny.

Attempted kidnappings and failed assassinations were plentiful enough, anyway, practically tradition for a high-profile government contractor and his publicly visible family.

If anything, Tony’s surprised Howard’s death was a result of something as mundane as an automotive accident.

Not that he’s _too_ surprised that alcohol was involved in his father’s untimely demise.

Howard’s drinking problem was a terribly kept secret and meeting his maker by way of a bottle and in one of his coveted ostentatious cars seemed almost poetic; that Howard didn’t go out in a blaze of glory that would be tabloid fodder for weeks was practically a relief.

Tony figured that this way their death wouldn’t haunt him.

(He was wrong.)

In truth, he always thought that something similar to the plot of some well-loved, if not predictable action movie would take place:

There would be a kidnapping, a ransom and then a delivery containing his mother’s family ring that she wore in place of a wedding band – the nail attached still shiny with the polish of her favourite shade of pearl – something dramatic and newsworthy, as Howard would’ve enjoyed; ever the showman.

(Something to terrify Tony almost as much as hearing his nanny scream before the carpet was soaked in blood.)

The whole debacle would last probably two days, three if the perpetrators drew it out. But no more. Not when they had Howard Stark.

His father liked to remind Tony how important of a man he was; a genius that was responsible for at least fifty percent of the United States’ arsenal; a millionaire that could pay whatever price he needed; an oil-slicked businessman with politicians in his pocket and a mile-long list of favours and blackmail on all of them. Howard Stark could and would make a deal for his life, sacrifice king and country so to speak, if given the opportunity to save his own skin.

Tony expected he would.

That Howard would never come home hadn’t even been a possibility.

Genius or not, at seventeen, Tony was still naïve enough to think that his father was invincible, that Death was just beyond him.

Then the accident happened.

Howard wrapped the car around a tree. The papers speculated that the impact alone would’ve killed Maria instantly.

Tony got a hold of the footage; he had to see it for himself.

(Rhodey held him the first time he watched it.)

Road. Car. Tree. Road. Car. Tree. Road. Car. Tree. Over and over. Over and over. Again, and again. Tony looked at it from every angle. Watched it until he could practically count the individual stones that made up the gravel in the road; knew the exact second the car would swerve; spot the burst of leaves that fell as the tree was hit.

There was no mistaking it.

This was how it ended.

The media calls it a tragedy.

Tony, however, is relieved.

Maria had always been scared to die. Or rather, too scared to do it herself.

He had seen it often enough as a child, no matter how much Jarvis or Ana tried to shield Tony from it.

Tony wasn’t as great at chemistry or biology compared to engineering and mechanics, but finding the information wasn’t too hard – he knew what the cocktail of pills his mother downed were for.

(“She’s unwell, young sir, it isn’t anyone’s fault.”)

His mother called him once to her bathroom, presumably to say goodbye when he was little more than eight.

She was fully dressed in her Sunday best, hair like spilt ink in the water as she sat mostly submerged. Her chin was cradled by wet hands, and her brown eyes lit up as he approached the lip of the tub.

(“My Antonio,” she crooned.)

It didn’t stick though.

Premediated, but not acted on.

Like the many bottles of sleeping pills she tried to empty but never swallowed; the gun she kept in her nightstand but never loaded; the window she liked to stand before, but never approached.

Tony remembers how wet the bathroom floor was (like the upended bottles, the forgotten bullets, the whisper of the curtain), another missed opportunity.

Her tombstone carried a similar shine in the rain.

Tony – Tony was happy for her.

This way, at least, it was done.

And Tony – Tony was happy for himself.

His father was gone, and maybe in the end, they all got what they wanted.

Now, Howard couldn’t be disappointed in him.

And for Tony; there’d be no more shadows that loomed ominously over Tony’s shoulder; no broken glass to cut himself on, no taunting voice that begged the question, “Who are you without me?”

“Free,” he routinely told Howard’s ghost.

But not free enough.

Road. Car. Tree. Road. Car. Tree. Road. Car Tree.

It’s like an itch in his brain; a sequence of bad code he can’t erase.

He doesn’t know why he can’t just let it be; why he can’t let it go or why he can’t just be happy for his mother or be glad that Howard is gone.

(The spectre of her soothes, “You know what’s coming, my Antonio, do you want to say anything before I go?”)

Tony wonders why it hurts him still, though he knows the answer.

(The first time BARF works, he replies, “I wish I could’ve been enough for you to want to stay.”)

Regret and hurt festers like a wound; it burns, and it stings, and it destroys Tony from the inside out.

It’s actually the alcohol that does that. What follows is the shrapnel that makes its home near his heart. And then the poisoning. And finally, the internal bleeding from a punctured lung because of a shield that won’t stop coming down- _down_ - ** _down_**.

(“Did you know?”

“…yes.”)

It’s all the same in the end, Tony Stark knows Death.

(“He’s my friend.”

“So was I.”)

Unfortunately, not intimately enough.

In the year 2016, it was estimated that every ten seconds, twenty-one people died.

Tony Stark was not one of them.

He’s so distraught that he cries for what is probably the first time since he put his mother in the ground.

Ichor bubbles at the back of his throat, and he thinks with bitter delirium, _Stark men are made of Iron_ as he pleads with the air, “I’m ready. I’m ready, please.” _(Textbook narcissism? Agreed.)_ “Just – Just take me. Make it – make it stop.” _(Me and the suit, we’re one.)_ “I just – I want it to stop. I’ve got nothing left.”

_(The truth is…I’m Iron Man.)_

 “God, just take me…please.”

_(My name is Tony Stark, and I’m not afraid of you.)_

The footage had been expertly altered; reality tattooing another manipulation into his skin; reminding him again and again that Tony Stark is just a means to an end.

Tony Stark does not have a heart.

“I’m so…I’m so fucking tired.”

His mother had been murdered and it’s no longer the road, the car, the tree that Tony sees.

Now, it’s –

(“You know what’s coming, my Antonio, do you want to say anything before I go?”)

The video plays on a loop as he lies on the floor of the bunker in a broken suit with his broken body. He can’t see it playing from his position, but he doesn’t need to look at the screen to know what’s happening.

He knows that road.

The number of gravel will still be the same. The second the car swerves will still be the same. The leaves that bursts free from its branches, the same.

Road. Car. Tree.

(“Antonio?”)

The audio is unforgiving.

Her choked plea makes Tony recoil far more than the sickening noises of his father’s face being broken, and then there’s the unsettling stillness.

The soft sound of footsteps on the snow.

A laboured breath.

(“I’m leaving now, Antonio, please, say something…”)

Before her bones snap beneath the pressure of a metal hand, the crack loud like a gunshot that rings-and-rings-and-rings like a death toll in his head.

Tony breathes in fire; his lungs on the verge of collapse.

“Please,” he finds himself begging through the blood gathered in the back of his throat, “please, take me with you.”

But Death only cradles him, murmuring against feverish skin, “No, not yet…”

(The Bleeding Edge holds up against the Titan, but one second too late – one miscalculation – one turn taken too slow or too fast – and it’s over.

They’ll lose, and Tony – Tony can’t – he can’t –)

“…not now…”

(A million outcomes and the only comfort Strange could offer him was a voice thick with apology, “Tony, there was no other way.”

He thought nothing could possibly scare him more –)

“…not you.”

(– Peter’s hands shake where he’s clutching tight to him, trying to anchor himself – trying to hold on, as he whimpers through breathless lips, “Mr. Stark, I don’t…I don’t feel so good –“)

Almost in apology, Death croons, “You still have so much further left to go.”

(With a snap…everyone…everyone is gone.)

And that– that frightens him more than the threat of space, and the Titan, and the future where he _fails_ , ever will.

-

-

-

“H-how much further?” he dares to ask.

“I don’t know…”

“Then will – will I ever,” he manages, licking at cracked, split lips, eyes pleading at the entity that doesn’t even have a _face_ , “will _you_ ever take me with you?”

-

-

-

 _“You know what’s coming, my Antonio,”_ his mother murmurs, brown eyes sad. _“Do you want to say anything before I go?”_

_-_

_-_

_-_

The touch is apologetic still, as Death replies, “I don’t think so.”

-

-

-

_“I love you…please, please don’t leave me.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This goes hand in hand with my headcanon for Avengers4 that to gain the Soul Stone, Tony gives up his humanity and therefore his death, to bring everyone back.
> 
> Also, I'm working on a fluffier-winteriron version for Kat so that should be out in a few days.
> 
> [Click here if you want to find out more about my work](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


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